


Storm-days

by szikra



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mentioning of drugs, one very long sentence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-18
Updated: 2012-05-18
Packaged: 2017-11-05 14:36:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/szikra/pseuds/szikra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is afraid of the storms, and while John finds it strange at first, he learns a few things about Sherlock's fear and he even finds out how to ease it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storm-days

Sherlock is afraid of the storms.  
When John first sees him shuddering over the microscope from the voice of a thunderstorm he is not that surprised as he usually is when Sherlock shows either his unbelievable or human side. He is finding it strange, but doesn’t say a word until Sherlock gets up abandoning his experiment and joins him on the sofa.  
“I can’t stand it” he says painfully. John only gets surprised now as Sherlock leans to his side trembling, and he can’t help but embrace the detective.  
BOOM.  
Sherlock squirms when another thunder strikes, then he’s only sitting on the couch with legs pulled up and blank eyes. “I can’t work at these times” he tries to explain quietly but this gives no explanation at all and John doesn’t dare to ask about the real reasons. No wonder that the doctor is worried about him but he is still happy, happy for being this close to Sherlock, feeling the scent of his shampoo and being able to smooth away the goose bumps on the detective’s arm.

The next thunderstorm scares Sherlock so much that he cries out and the cups fells out of his hands and the tiny bits of porcelain covers the tiles of the kitchen.  
“Sit down, I’ll take care of this” hurries John to him. He sweeps away the splinters, and then sits next to Sherlock to disinfect the few little wounds on the detective’s legs.  
“Do storms always make you this upset?” he asks while Sherlock is hissing from the stinging feeling.  
“I have no problem with the storms” he says. “That would be pretty irrational. I like the rain and the lightning.”  
“Then…?”  
Sherlock almost knocks out the antiseptic of John’s hand as he squirms, then he’s nestling up to the doctor.  
“It’s alright” rubs John down his back. “Everybody has irrational fears. It’s only making you more human.”  
“What’s yours?”  
“Mine?” John gives a small, bitter chuckle. “Maybe being left all alone again... like in Afghanistan.”  
“When you got shot?”  
John nods, Sherlock’s hair brushes his chin. “I was only lying there for about half an hour, and I couldn’t move or shout from the pain, so nobody noticed me. I was desperate of my own inability.”  
“Then you got unconscious.”  
“Yes, I woke up in the hospital.”  
“I thought.”  
None of them speaks for a while; John’s only petting the detective’s back like he comforted Harry when they were little. He doesn’t ask because he knows that if Sherlock doesn’t want to talk about something, he won’t, but Sherlock do starts to speak, about doors for a starter. About big, heavy double doors which shut with a loud clap and how flying hurts, flying though the room when the door was slapped on him while he was standing on the threshold. Mycroft said while he was taking care of Sherlock’s wound that it was because he could never shut up, and maybe he was right, but it was not a matter anymore.  
John’s listening him in disbelief because he’d never imagined that Sherlock himself would tell him about his childhood, but that doesn’t mean that he got to knew the detective better. Sherlock falls asleep on his shoulder after a while.

Sherlock tries to fake calmness at their third storm but his hands are shaking so badly that he spills tea on the kitchen table. John’s watching his wrestling then reaches out for him.  
“Want to come here?”  
Sherlock turns his head away but stands up and sits next to the doctor tensely.  
“It’s okay” John puts his arm around him.  
“But–”  
“I mean… hugging is okay.”  
“Ah.”  
Still, Sherlock needs time to be at ease and his trembling doesn’t stop until John draws him closer, his warm hand stroking Sherlock’s arm and he starts to talk about Harry. The detective listens to him puzzled for a while, then he realises that John doing it for him, to calm him, to distract him and preoccupy his racing mind with some silliness; what was Harry like as a child and how has she started drinking, and how did she behave with Clara. And Sherlock catches himself actually listening to John because this subject is truly important for John not like his girlfriends whom Sherlock knows only a few things because it was irrelevant – maybe even for John because he only mentions them if he needs to cancel a program with Sherlock for the sake of a date or Sherlock has to meet them at dull occasions.  
The storm calms down in an hour, and John stands up sighing to stretch his numb arm and smiles at Sherlock.  
“I’m going to take a shower… Good night.”  
And Sherlock, even if he trembles because John’s warm body left his side and the carpet is cold for his bare feet, his pyjamas are thin and there’s only seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit in the room, he isn’t cold anymore because John’s smile doesn’t let him feel cold.

The next storm strikes down in the middle of the night and John not really sure about what makes him awake: the thunders, his worrying about Sherlock or just the sense of the man being awake. Somehow he always senses it, even if the detective doesn’t make much noise and it even makes him sleep better, hearing the soft fumbling of Sherlock or some sweet tunes on his violin – but not that night.  
Sherlock stands at the desk, the smouldering cigarette shakes in his hand.  
“I didn’t mean to wake you up” he says as he sees John. “It’s workday tomorrow, go and try to sleep back. If I really bother you I can go out for…”  
“It’s raining cats and dogs!” John snaps in disbelieve. “You stay here because you seem to be in a really bad shape and I’ll be fine for a day without sleeping.”  
A thunder strikes down but Sherlock’s eyes are blank, he’s been trembling for minutes then he puts out his cigarette. “I need something stronger” he mutters and John’s eyes are widening in shock because Sherlock doesn’t really talk about his old drug issues, and that’s why this sentence terrifies the doctor.  
“Since how long have you been clean?” he asks anxiously.  
“A bit longer than a year and a half… Twenty months. That isn’t a long time, is it? The flat is clean, I didn’t want to risk an other drug bust after you moved in. But well, not like Anderson could even find the pair of his socks.”  
Sherlock pushes his hair back with so much force that it draws white lines on his forehead showing the ways of his fingers. “I simply can’t stand it. I can’t” he whimpers and John can only pull an arm around him and lead him to the couch where Sherlock nestles up to him trembling, and the doctor gently strokes his back and hair.  
“If you tell me what bothers you I might can help you” he says in low voice. “If I think you need it, I’ll even bring you down some tranquillizers from my bag, okay? Just try to tell me.”  
Sherlock doesn’t answers for a while, just tightly hugs John until his shudder eases, then he draws away to rest his head on John’s shoulder.  
“My mind” he sighs “seldom stops, only when I’m sleeping or I’m high, sometimes even relaxation helps but now it just racing because there’s nothing, nothing to keep it busy, not a case, so all I have in my mind is how upset could mommy get and which one of us did it and how, that how annoying are your girlfriends or that Anderson forgot the birthday of his mother and that Mycroft’s sudokus can’t hold my interest anymore nor the Rubik-cubes, and I can’t concentrate enough to arrange the new information waiting for preparing in my mind palace and everything keeps coming in and get stuck inside my head and it’s, it’s, it’s…” Tear trembles in his eyes as he looks up at John and it is too late for the doctor to turn his head away. Sherlock can read from his face that he was looking at the detective’s face for minutes now with a strange longing, a desire which he doesn’t even want to admit himself and hearing from Sherlock would be too much… But Sherlock’s voice is finally not filled with sadness but amazement:  
“You want to kiss me.”  
John knows that there’s no point to deny it, yet he doesn’t look at the detective, he rather shuts his eyes hoping that it would make the aching from his chest and the burning from his face go away.  
“I can bring you down tranquillizers if you’d like some” he says with forced calmness but shivers as Sherlock strokes his jaw with one finger.  
“Don’t… Don’t tease me, Sherlock.”  
“Do it.”  
John’s eyes burst open. “What?”  
“I’m curious. This is finally interesting enough to distract me at least for a little while. Do it.”  
“But I’ve never kissed a man before!” John defies then he realises that nobody has ever kissed Sherlock before.  
“These are only mouths” Sherlock insists. “Skin, flesh and muscles. You must have learnt anatomy, doctor, so you need to know that there’s no major difference between the lips of a man and a woman.”  
John knows it.  
“Close your eyes.”  
“Why?”  
“Just close them.”  
Sherlock waits with eyes shut for a few unbearable seconds, which only makes him more curious and longing, then he feels the fingers of John on his face and the palm of the doctor sliding onto his neck – then their lips meet. He can feel the softness of the skin and the light force of the muscles and he doesn’t need to think about how to kiss back because it goes without saying and thinking, a simple stimulus which could distract him for minutes. He is almost disappointed, when John draws back, still holding him, leaning his head on Sherlock’s shoulder.  
“Hm? Are you feeling better?”  
“It was nice” whispers the detective. He can see a lightning striking down and prepares himself for the thunder – but it only makes him shudder, it brings no thoughts about Mycroft and doors. He doesn’t even want to think about these kind of things, because he can still feel John’s lips and the smell of his aftershave and the warmth of his body… “Thank you.” Sherlock says and he can feel a tear tracing down his chin and he knows that he’s only crying in relief.

“It’s raining outside” Molly says a month later, bringing him coffee to the morgue. “I think there’s going to be a big storm. Do you still want to stay? I mean, it’s okay for me, I’m on night shift tonight, but I don’t want you to…”  
“You are blabbering, Molly, I’m staying and I could really use a little silence, thank you. Oh… and… also thanks for the coffee.”  
Molly nodded, not wanting to get scolded off again, and lets Sherlock work on his project. She can even help him with a few things, she takes notes for him and Sherlock tells her his thoughts about the project, since it’s finally something that makes Molly just as interested as the detective.  
She is just really concerned about him, that’s why she is surprised when Sherlock shivers for the low voice of the thunder.  
“Are you…?”  
“It’s cold in here” he interrupts then he checks his phone.

_Is everything okay? I’ll go and get you with a cab if you want me. – JW_

The text makes him smile. He is fine, really – but he misses John.  
“I reckon I can’t stay, Molly” he says and pull down his rubber gloves to write back: _It’s not necessary. I’m bringing Chinese takeaway, lay the table. Don’t forget the candle._ "I’m having a date"  
Molly has never been this confused before. Sherlock? On a date? Of course she’s always had a little crush on him but she knew that it was silly and hopeless because she couldn’t imagine the man having a candle lit dinner with someone in a restaurant and holding her hand, or cuddle with somebody on the couch… She has a curious kind of smile on her lips.  
“Are you in love?” she asks, and she’s really happy, Sherlock, however, only shrugs.  
“In love? Well… I really like John, I’ve never liked anybody this much before, but… Ah. Yes, the simplest expression for this is ‘being in love’. It’s a sweeping statement and it’s not even exact but I think it’s the easiest way to describe it.”  
Sherlock can see the surprise on Molly’s face when she hears John’s name and it makes him smile. But yes, it’s true. How could he not love the man who can ease his fright from the thunders?


End file.
